Used book – Penser la crise: Défaillances de la théorie, du marché, de la régulation, Elie Cohen

This book is not just another account of the crisis, nor is it a catalogue of solutions to overcome it, and even less a prophetic essay on the post-crisis world or the refounding of capitalism. This ambitious work invites us to think about a crisis that was announced but remained unthought.

This crisis, which at every turn has baffled all experts, reveals a triple failure: that of the markets, devoid of the stabilizing properties attributed to them; that of regulation, since the financial core was over-regulated while turning a blind eye to a proliferating, unstable, and dangerous periphery; and finally, that of economic theory, which failed to model the dynamic interactions of finance and the real economy in a globalized world.

By examining the economic history of the last quarter-century, Élie Cohen analyzes the dual movement of globalization and deregulation that underpins the current crisis. Indeed, as a risk industry based on unbridled financial innovation developed, all Western countries, following in the footsteps of the United States and Great Britain, progressively liberalized financial markets. The result was a financial system that became so complex that regulators no longer dared to venture into it.

Through this brilliant and clear demonstration, Élie Cohen gives the reader the feeling of finally having understood what happened and provides all the keys to evaluate crisis exit scenarios, judge new regulatory attempts, and measure the risks currently weighing on our economies.

Director of research at the CNRS and the National Foundation for Political Science, Élie Cohen is the author of several essays, notably La Tentation hexagonale (1996), L'Ordre économique mondial (2001), and Le Nouvel Âge du capitalisme (2005), all published by Fayard.